If there's an ordinary experience more agonizing than being romantically rejected without explanation, I'm not familiar with it.

Here's what I am familiar with: the psychological torment that comes when a person with whom I've had one of the best conversations of my life shows no interest in having another. Or when a person who made me see cherubim when he kissed me drops completely out of contact without even having asked how I might feel about being used for sex. (Usually it wouldn't interest me, but I would have made an exception, in his case.) Or when a certain someone who wanted to discuss what we would name our children—never mind that we'd known each other for only two weeks—suddenly disappears without a trace.

The pain certainly would be lessened if only I knew the answer to a simple, obvious question: What the hell happened? After all, as one of the characters in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya puts it, "Truth, whatever it may be, is better than uncertainty." But as satisfying as it would be to conduct a brief exit interview whenever a dating situation goes awry, it's just not done. Which is odd, really, when you consider that requesting feedback is perfectly acceptable in so many other situations, whether it's while trying on clothes in a communal dressing room or after interviewing for a new job (when, according to the career experts, we're supposed to follow up with those who have declined to hire us to get some insight about their decision that could help us with the next potential employer).

In the dating world, however, we're unable to accumulate any reliable data about ourselves, unable to use a somewhat scientific method to discern any terrible pattern—whether it be chronic mild halitosis or chronic mild psychosis— that might be causing people to flee, because requesting feedback is definitely not okay. Instead, we are left to imagine the worst—which is certainly what I do. My mind turns on me with a vengeance, and I assume that the guy in question has seen a deficit in me that is a negative reflection of his most salient positive trait. I assume, that is, that I'm not smart enough for a brilliant person, not accomplished enough for the successful achiever, not enough of a looker for the especially handsome.

This may, of course, have to do with my self-esteem, but until recently, I'd always assumed that most people react this way—that matters of the heart turned us all into neurotic basket cases. But when I was discussing this with a friend, he said, "Now that we're in our thirties, isn't it easier to see that when something doesn't work out, it's just because it's a mismatch?"

Clearly he is peculiarly well-adjusted. But another friend said almost exactly the same thing. "You have to stop thinking that there's something wrong with you," he told me. "Just like particles and quantum mechanics, things only exist in relation to one another."

Much as I would love to believe in the Romantic Theory of Relativity, it always feels unsatisfying: If I thought some Mr. Wonderful was a contender, why didn't he feel the same?

Earlier this year, I encountered an unmarried man in his forties who succeeded where my friends had failed: He convinced me, with his unsolicited feedback, that the reason he hadn't fallen for me had nothing to do with a personal flaw of mine, per se, but plenty to do with an incompatibility.

This fellow was so attractive—with dark hair that swerved back across his head in a thick, gelled s—that I was slightly unnerved when I showed up to meet him for our first date, a Sunday brunch. Also somewhat unsettling was how formally he was dressed for a casual weekend meal: pressed shirt, navy corduroys, and Italian loafers so creamy it seemed as though you could rub them and come away with moisturized hands. He would've fit right in at church, while I, in black jeans, black sweater, and purple booties, looked ready for an indie-rock concert.

His personality was rather formal too: Instead of trading stories about ourselves, we spent that afternoon discussing such ideas as different philosophers' takes on aesthetics—or rather, he talked, and I listened. Not that I minded, exactly. He had a wonderful talent for giving fascinating mini-lectures on such topics as the Neurological Reasons Why Humans Enjoy Music (in part, it seems, because lullabies help young brains to develop). It was like I was taking some kind of adult enrichment class and going on a date at the same time. He also had a good, if quirky, sense of humor: He self-deprecatingly mentioned that he was so paranoid about STDs that he more or less demanded a signed document from the Department of Health before he'd sleep with a woman.

We went on three dates in total—and enjoyed each other's company enough, though nothing that felt even close to passion ever developed. When he broached the topic of a fourth date, I asked if he'd noticed that things weren't exactly catching fire. He said he had, and suggested that we might do better as friends. I agreed that it was a good idea. This was clearly just a case of being mismatched.

Nonetheless, a little voice inside my head began nagging at me, saying: Obviously there was something about me he didn't like. I would soon find out exactly what it was.

In an attempt to begin our platonic relationship, this man invited me over to his apartment to listen to his very fancy stereo. ("I live across the street from Lincoln Center," he informed me, "but the sound quality I have at home is better than what you'd get in their lesser seats.")

Up on the twenty-first floor of his luxury building, he showed me his impressive view of Central Park, poured me a glass of water, and played a tango on the aforementioned stereo (which quite possibly cost more than I make in a year). At some point, I finally dared to make the conversation more personal, opening up about how sad I'd been since ending a serious relationship, and revealing my real fear that I'd never find another boyfriend again—that I was too old, too infertile.

He seemed very interested in my problems. Turning down the music, he said, "Look, I have a theory about why you're having trouble meeting someone."

I was fearful, but also too curious not to let him continue.

"You're smart enough to make a good companion for anyone—a lack of intelligence is not the problem." Foolishly I thought: Perhaps this won't hurt. "And your career is pretty interesting," he went on. "That wouldn't turn anyone off. And you're...attractive." He said it grudgingly, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "But..."

The hairs on the back of my neck were raised. Attractive, but? But what?

He came out with it, in a rush. "For starters, look at your clothes. I could never take you to the opera. You wouldn't have the right things to wear. Hermès scarves, for instance. I'm sure you don't own a single Hermès scarf!" He was right: I didn't. If I'm ever caught dead in one, I hope it's because someone has strangled me with it.

"And your makeup," he continued. "Don't you know how to work with your natural assets?" He mentioned that a former girlfriend wouldn't have warranted a second glance from him without her makeup on, but after she spent an hour fussing in her bathroom every morning, she turned herself into a cover girl. "Do you know that there are things you could do to make your eyes look bigger? And to make your skin glow?"

I was too flabbergasted to respond. I wore mascara, blush, concealer—what more did he want?

"And your hair! Maybe you should get a curling iron. Have you ever considered highlights?"

All of this was dangerously close to being told I wasn't, in fact, attractive. But I managed to see that we hadn't just discussed different aesthetic philosophies—we had them. I'll concede that my hair might look better with highlights, but I want to subtract vanity duties from my schedule, not add them; I'd prefer to spend less time trying to make myself look good and more on things like writing, reading, and living.

The man's critique struck me as so preposterous that I walked out of his apartment feeling as trange relief—like Emily Mortimer's character must have felt in the indie film Lovely & Amazing. A minor thespian and major neurotic, she goads the famous film star she has just slept with into telling her everything that's wrong with her body. Somewhat grudgingly, the actor (played by Dermot Mulroney) agrees to be honest with her. He acknowledges that she's a little pale, that her teeth are yellow, that her hair is flat, that "in a perfect world, your ass would be rounder." Her breasts might be "a little droopy from the side" but they're also "really pretty—perfect from the front." And that's all he has to say. Incredulously, she asks, "Is there more?" When there isn't, she nearly skips off, giddy with happiness. Sometimes, as she discovered, the truth is a lot less painful than what we imagine.

This man had rejected me for things that I basically like about myself. Though I hadn't quite appreciated how ill-suited we were to each other before his diatribe, it was perfectly clear to me afterward. As my psychologist friend put it, "You and he have different values."

Emboldened by the experience, I've twice now asked for the other person's perspective about why a first date didn't lead to a second (albeit in low-stakes cases in which I wasn't too worried about what the answer might be)—and further data to support the Theory of Romantic Relativity has emerged.

One guy wrote, "You extended your arm for a handshake before I could kiss you, and took a day or two to respond after I e-mailed the next morning to ask if you wanted to get together again. I got the feeling you weren't all that interested!"

The second man's response didn't go down quite as easily. "While it's unorthodox for you to ask that question, I have a lot of respect for the fact that you did," he wrote. "So I'll do my best to answer honestly and constructively. For starters, we're very obviously at different stages in dating. It seems more like you're looking for the intimacy of a long-term relationship and that's not quite where I am right now. Also, I've spent a lot of time over the past few years getting my career to where I wanted to be. You're not at that point right now, and I can foresee trying to help you get to where I am, and getting frustrated with that."

That last part stung quite a bit. But it was true—I wasn't where I wanted to be. At the same time, I was supporting myself by writing, even if I didn't love every assignment I took. Moreover, I thought it was a bit presumptuous, even ludicrous, that he thought he might've been able to help me get ahead in the unconventional world of writing, when he was an Internet guy.

All of this notwithstanding, perhaps the real consolation of feedback isn't about learning why you've been rejected as much as it is about simply not being ignored. The philosopher William James recognized that being treated as if we don't exist excites "a kind of rage and impotent despair...from which the cruelest bodily torture would be a relief." Anyone who explains why you won't see him again spares you that kind of suffering.

Unfortunately, that realization won't prevent me from ever again wondering what went wrong. At the end of the last date I had, with a writer I liked so much that I couldn't hold his intense gaze a few times during our dinner because it was too overwhelming, I did not stick out my hand when it came time to kiss; I leaned forward and pursed my lips. And when he wrote the next day to say we should get together again, I wrote right back to say how much I would like that. But I never heard from him again. And though it's been a few months, I still wonder why.